Splendido at the Chateau, Avon

My wife and I decided to spend a long weekend in Vail and Beaver Creek this summer. I travel a lot on business and thought it would be a great break for a few days. We have several restaurants we like in and around Beaver Creek, but I thought we would try something new. After going on Tripadvisor I thought Spelndido at the Chateau sounded quite nice and made a dinner reservation a week before arriving. What a disappointment! We drove up to the hotel at about 6:00 P.M. We then proceeded to wait for the parking valet at the front entrance. We waited and waited, but nobody came. I assumed the valets were all busy with other things, and, as it is not possible to park anywhere near the hotel, and I did not want to leave my car in the driveway, we patiently waited. Finally, I asked my wife to wait in the car and walked into the hotel to find soemone to help us. I found a person who seemed to be associated with the hotel who simply stated that the parking valet had not yet arrived for work that evening. I was directed to park on the far side of the circle driveway and bring in my car keys to the front desk. After doing so, and once inside the hotel restaurant, we were seated at a very small table, in a corner, at which my wife and I could only sit at a right angle to each-other. Noticing that there was only one other table that was occupied in the entire restaurant, when our waitress came be to get our drink orders, we asked to change tables. Her response was that all other tables in the restaurant were reserved for other diners. Looking around, and noticing we were essentially the only ones in the restaurant, I waited for her to reveal her rather poor sense of humor and move us to a nicer table. No such luck, she never smiled and insisted that all of the other tables were taken. I told our waitress to speak to her manager and suggested that we could move to one of the many other tables that were unoccupied. She left, came back a few minutes later, and simply said no other tables were available, and then quickly asked us whether we wanted to order wine, as if to change the subject and dismiss our request to move us to another table. I again asked our non-smiing waitress about many of the other tables that were empty and she again said no tables were available except for the one we were initially seated at. I really expected her, at some point, to start laughing at the practical joke she was playing on us, but that never happened. We had made the reservations a week in advance, at a ski area restaurant in the middle of the summer off season, and nobody else was there - what was I missing? I explained to Ms. Smiley that we would be leaving and she simply replied As you wish As we were leaving another person, presumably a manager, called after us near the front entrance and said that they would, after all, be able to move us to a different table. I retrieved our car keys from the front desk (still no valet) and we left. I can t say much about the food, but we were able to get a good perspective of the restaurant surroundings. Beaver Creek is truly beautiful, but we did not think much of the area surrounding the Slendido at the Chateau nor the views from the restaurant. It was okay, but we had seen much better. Having reveiwed the menu I can tell you that this is an expensive restaurant. The prices would leave one to believe that the both the food, and the service, would be exemplary. Given our experience the money would be best spent elsewhere. Warning - We have learned, from some bad experiences, that when a restaurant has a series of absolutely wonderful reviews, where every single aspect of the reaturant could not have possibly been better, that the reality may be different from what appears in the reviews. Be careful.